The Internet connects thousands of computers world wide into a vast network using well-known protocols, for example, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP). Information on the Internet is stored world wide as computer files, mostly written in the Hypertext Mark Up Language (“HTML”). The collection of all such publicly available computer files is known as the World Wide Web (WWW).
The WWW is a multimedia-enabled hypertext system used for navigating the Internet and is made up of hundreds of thousands of web pages with audio, images, text and video files. Each web page can have connections to other pages, which may be located on any computer connected to the Internet.
A typical Internet user uses a client program called a “Web Browser” to connect to the Internet. A user can connect to the Internet via a proprietary network, such as America Online or CompuServe, or via an Internet Service Provider, e.g., Earthlink.
A Web Browser may run on any computer connected to the Internet. Currently, various browsers are available of which two prominent browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The Web Browser receives and sends requests to a web server and acquires information from the WWW. A web server is a program that, upon receipt of a request, sends the requested data to the requesting user.
A standard naming convention known as Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) has been adopted to represent hypermedia links and links to network services. Most files or services can be represented with a URL. URLs enable Web Browsers to go directly to any file held on any WWW server.
Information from the WWW is accessed using well-known protocols, including the Hypertext Transport Protocol (“HTTP”), the Wide Area Information Service (“WAIS”) and the File Transport Protocol (“FTP”), over TCP/IP protocol. The transfer format for standard WWW pages is Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
The advent and progress of the Internet has changed the way consumers buy or listen to music. Consumers today can download digital music via the Internet using MP3 or SDMI technology, with a click of a mouse. Audio delivery techniques have also made it easy to stream audio from a website to a consumer, upon demand. A typical music listener can download audio files from the WWW, store the audio files, and listen to music.
Currently music can be stored in various file formats. Generally there are two types of file formats: (1) self-describing formats, where device parameters and encoding are made explicit in a header, and (2) headerless formats, where device parameters and encoding are fixed.
The header of self-describing formats contain parameters of a sampling device and may also include other information (e.g. a human-readable description of sound, or a copyright notice etc.). Some examples of popular self describing formats are provided below:
File ExtensionVariable Parameters (fixed; comments)au or .sndrate, #channels, encoding, info stringaif(f), AIFFrate, #channels, sample width, lots of infoaif(f), AIFCsame (extension of AIFF with compression)iff, IFF/8SVXrate, #channels, instrument info (8 bits)mp2, .mp3rate, #channels, sample quality.rarate, #channels, sample quality.sfrate, #channels, encoding, info.smploops, cues, (16 bits/1 ch).vocrate (8 bits/1 ch; can use silence deletion).wav, WAVErate, #channels, sample width, lots of info
Headerless formats define single encoding and usually allow no variation in device parameters (except sometimes for sampling rates). The following are a few examples of Headerless formats:
ExtensionParameters or name.snd, .fssdVariable rate, 1 channel, 8 bits unsigned.ul8 k, 1 channel, 8 bit “u-law” encoding.sndVariable rate, 1 channel, 8 bits signed
Although music listeners can store audio files, conventional music search techniques do not allow a music listener to search for music based upon audio file content. Conventional systems also do not allow a music listener to generate play lists based upon music listener preferences and/or audio file content.
Hence what is needed is a method and system that can analyze audio file content and produce a play list based upon preferences defined by a music listener.